Wet Man, Dry Man, Sam Malone
by Herbert Groover
Summary: For Buster's 21st birthday, Arthur and Francine plan a fun-filled trip to Las Vegas - but when their plane unexpectedly lands in Boston, they quickly find themselves in a rundown old bar called Cheers. As they soon discover, though, Cheers may not be quite as abandoned as it seems...


June 30th, 2009 was a significant day in the life of Arthur Reid. For on this day, Arthur's best friend, Buster Baxter, celebrated his twenty-first birthday. As Arthur, Buster and Francine Frensky sat in Buster's car on the way to the airport, they were all well aware what this meant: as of this day, not one of them was below the legal drinking age. And they intended to take full advantage of that fact.

Their parents, however, disagreed with the judgment of the law. In the eyes of Messrs. And Mesdames Reid, Baxter and Frensky, their children were not fit to consume the fine fluid ambrosias of the ethanol gods. It was fortunate, then, that their children had not informed them of their road trip, so that when the aforesaid adolescents reached the airport and disembarked from their vehicle at midnight on that long-awaited birthday, their parents dozed contentedly in their beds, unaware that their offspring were slowly careening towards a world far removed from the suburban safety of Elwood City. Only Arthur's younger sister D. W. was aware of their destination – and she could be counted on not to tell.

June 30th, 2009 was also a significant day in the life of Dr. Frasier Crane. For unbeknownst to the good doctor, it was the day on which his misdeeds of the past sixteen years would finally be uncovered.

* * *

"Boston?" Arthur asked incredulously. "Our plane landed in Boston? I thought we were going to Las Vegas!"

"Look, kid," the pilot bellowed as he loosened his belt buckle and began to unzip his pants, "this here is my damn plane, and I'm gonna fly it wherever the hell I see fit. If you don't like it, then tough! I've been to Vegas a thousand stinking times, and today I felt like going to Boston! Now get the hell out of here, I have to take a dump and I don't feel like walking all the way to the washroom."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" Francine shouted. "We paid for a trip to Vegas, and you were supposed to take us there!" Arthur and Buster were barely able to restrain her as she lunged toward the pilot, swinging her fists in a rage.

"Francine, calm down!" Arthur shouted. "If you assault the pilot, we'll all be in some serious shit!" Arthur had seen first-hand what had happened to Muffy Crosswire after she'd been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay, and the last thing he wanted was to have to join her there. _Although,_ he thought longingly, _it sure would be nice to see her again…._

"Speaking of shit," the pilot declared, "I'm just about to take that dump now, and if y'all aren't out of 'ere by the count of three, I can't be held responsible for the consequences! One…"

"Come on," said Buster, "let's just go!"

"Two…"

"There's probably plenty of great bars in Boston!"

"Three!"

The three friends dashed out of the plane and a revolting odor followed after them, assaulting their nostrils as they ran.

* * *

"Hey," said Buster after they'd walked for a solid hour and the smell had left them almost entirely, "this looks like it might be a nice place for a drink."

Arthur and Francine looked up and saw a dilapidated wooden sign featuring a stylized drawing of a hand pointing to the building beside them. "CHEERS," it read, "est. 1895."

"It looks pretty rundown," said Arthur. "I'm not sure it's even open. Why don't we look for someplace a bit… safer?"

"Come on Arthur," said Francine. "Where's your spirit of adventure? Here we are, out on our own for the first time, lost in a strange city where anything can happen, and you want to play it _safe_? Let's go in and have a drink!"

Arthur and Buster exchanged a glance and shrugged their shoulders as Francine opened the door of the bar. Little did they know it was the first time that door had been opened in nearly sixteen years….

* * *

"Hello?" Francine shouted. "Is there anybody there?" The bar was dark and empty, and thick cobwebs hung above its dusty tables.

"Well," said Arthur, "looks like there's no one here. I guess that means we can go back, right?"

"Are you _kidding_?" Francine asked. "This is perfect! Now we can just help ourselves to all the booze we want!" She jumped over the bar with impressive agility and turned on the tap, then loudly slurped up the stale beer that flowed forth, not bothering to use a glass.

"You know," said Arthur, "I really think we should leave. There's got to be some less creepy bars where we can get actual beer."

"Oh, all right," said Francine begrudgingly.

"Hey!" said Buster, "it looks like there's a pool room over there. Want to go play a few rounds before we leave?"

"Eh, sure," said Francine. "Why not?" She gabbed Arthur's arm and dragged him along with her despite his protests as she followed Buster into the bar's pool room.

Upon entering the room, they immediately saw Count Gerhard V of Julich lying on the floor in his underclothes, barely moving but very much alive, with a gag in his mouth and his hands and feet fastened securely behind his head. His eyes looked up to them pitifully, as if imploring them to free him from his bonds. Above him hung the bodies of a tall man with a bullet hole through his forehead and a blonde woman with a deep cut in the front of her throat – though curiously, they too appeared to be alive, and their eyes stared at the three friends with a fierce intensity.

"Holy shit!" Francine exclaimed. "Let's get the hell out of here!"

"I'm sorry my dear, but I'm afraid that won't be possible," said a smooth, elegant voice from the bar. Startled, they turned around to see the figure of a middle-aged bald man standing in front of them, wearing a long black overcoat. "I really hate to do this," he said. "It's so unfortunate that you had to get mixed up in this sorry affair." Arthur tried with all his might to run away, but was stopped in his tracks by a searing pain in his chest. As he fell to the ground his vision faded, and he desperately hoped that Buster and Francine would go on without him and make it out alive….

* * *

Ten Years Later

"So, here it began and here it shall end." General Cliff Clavin stood on the deck of his massive, high-tech airship, flying miles above the city of Boston. His conquest of the world had not been easy, but once he took Boston, it would finally be complete. Unbeknownst to the world, however, he was not mad for power. No, his campaign of religious and political world domination had only ever had one goal – to track down and capture Dr. Frasier Crane, who in 1993 had murdered Sam Malone, abducted Diane Chambers, and disappeared to an unknown location in the South America. In 2010 Cliff had quit his job as a postman and traveled to Venezuela to foment revolution in the hopes of locating Frasier, but despite having taken over and thoroughly searched the entire continent within a year, he found no trace of his former friend. And so he had spread his influence out over the entire world – all except for this one little city in Massachusetts.

Cliff securely fastened his parachute. "Are you coming, D. W.?" he shouted.

"Right here, sir!" Colonel D. W. Reid, Cliff's second in command, had been with him from the very beginning, and surpassed even himself in her eagerness to locate Dr. Crane. The reason, she explained, was simple – her brother Arthur had been missing since 2009, and according to the account given by his best friend, Buster Baxter, shortly before he died, a man matching Dr. Crane's description had been responsible for Arthur's disappearance.

_I'm coming, Arthur,_ D. W. thought as she and Cliff parachuted down to the roof of Cheers. _Just hang in there a bit longer._

* * *

_Author's note: this was my attempt at writing a short story in under two hours. I may take it down at some point in the future and edit it into something longer and more comprehensible.  
_


End file.
